Dear Lookstein readers,
It's wonderful to see a conversation about standards, pedagogy, and literacy in Jewish education. From an educational standpoint, I'd like to add a few thoughts.
1. It strikes me that Hebrew, just like any subject, exist in a social environment shared between the school and the family. While Hebrew language may be incentivized within a school, if it isn't at home then the school faces a tremendous deficit in terms of social priority and Hebrew language learning suffers. In other words, the lack of Hebrew language skills among day school graduates almost surely mirrors the lack of Hebrew knowledge among Jewish families more generally. So, I think blaming schools, teachers, and students misses the point that Jewish education in America is driven not by the desire for literacy (if so, we'd have many tests like the one Dr. Astor administered) but by demographic anxiety/socialization. Parents want their child, at the end of the day, to continue to be a member of the Jewish community via endogamy and other social ties. Literacy can take a back seat and, further, it may even be counter productive when "affect" is the dominating trend in socialization.
2. There's really no replacement for language immersion when it comes to language learning. Incentivizing student language learning outside of an immersion context is really difficult - to say the least. Choice plays a role here, but we don't allow day school students to choose from among a group of languages like public schools often do - it's Hebrew. Social capital also plays a role and, in that way, day schools do a decent job with small groups of students labeled as honors/advanced, kids who everyone expects to do well. Beyond that, discussions of pedagogy are immensely fraught. I'd be surprised if the pedagogic methods employed by Dr. Astor and the IBC faculty produced long term learning (memorization drills devoid of context and incentive rarely do). Further, Cheder shouldn't be held up as an institutional model since it produced many outstanding teachers. Judging institutions on their successes isn't the point of this conversation. The Cheder failed many more students who associated Judaism with poverty and left the minute they stepped off the boat in the new world.
3. If the question is - what pedagogies facilitate Hebrew instruction - then I can't think of a better answer than Israel. Spending an academic year in a non American environment would be worth more than 12 years of Hebrew instruction outside of an immersive environment combined. If the question is - absent immersion what's the best way to teach Hebrew in America, especially to those for whom Hebrew learning isn't a goal at home - the solutions are fraught. Teaching exists in context and if certain types of learning/knowledge aren't privileged then there's not much teachers can do other than to inspire interest - that means allowing students to follow their own preferences as well as modeling their (the teachers) own enthusiasm for the subject. it means bringing joy to the classroom in one way or another.
4. More to think about. Hebrew language instruction often happens around one or two particular subjects, both very complicated when it comes to producing interest. The first is Torah/Talmud instruction. If a child is having difficult accepting the authority of those texts (like most adult Jews) then Hebrew language learning will falter. The second is Israel, which is often the central topic of Hebrew classes, which also, increasingly, can produce difficult conversations among American Jews, posing another social risk to Hebrew language learning.
5. While a lot of these suggestions are based on previous language learning research, the truth is that research into Hebrew education is difficult to come by. In that vein, I'd call on Avi Chai, YU, CASJE or another institution to help facilitate a Hebrew language research program so that educators can better understand the value of certain pedagogies, the social contexts of their students, and potential realistic standards absent an immersion context.
Always happy to continue this important conversation offline.
Thanks
Matt Williams
Phd Candidate in Jewish Studies and Education
Stanford University
